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Vice President Ma’ruf Amin has stated that risk sharing scheme is a development strategy concept to make the country tough and dynamic.

“Risk sharing concept stresses that risks must be distributed among all sides involved so not only one side will suffer from the risks and the risks will not be heavier ,” he said an event “Economic Challenges, Special Ramadhan” broadcast by a private television station on Saturday.

Risk sharing scheme can be seen from insurance, banking, infrastructure development, etc. schemes, he said.

The vice president said a risk sharing concept is applied to development strategy as one of the solutions to shun economic crisis and maintain financial system stability because it can avoid excessive losses.

“These characteristics are in line with the four main pillars of sustainable development — social development, economic development, environmental development and legal development and good governance,” he said.

The risk sharing scheme also accords with Islamic financial system which emphasizes profit and loss sharing principles, he said.

“Indeed, Islamic economy must be based on the principles of be justice, balance and togetherness,” he said.

The Indonesian Vice President also said the government has carried out various efforts to handle the scarring effect as people are afraid to spend and invest their money due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Scarring effect is a concern harbored by most economic actors,” he noted during “the Economic Challenges, Special Ramadhan” aired on a private television station on Saturdy.

“This happens in the face of uncertainty because of the pandemic,” he added.

To handle this issue, the government encourages financial institutions to continue to distribute credit, especially to priority sectors such as tourism and Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).

The government also pushes the business world to utilize digital technology while conducting economic activities.

Source: Antara News

Collaboration between state-owned Bank Tabungan Negara (BTN) with other state-owned enterprises (SOEs) offered a solution to housing demands for millennials, SOE Minister Erick Thohir said in a statement on Sunday.

Thohir encourages synergy among BTN, Perumnas, KAI, BUMN Karya, and even PLN and Telkom to provide a one stop solution for Gen Z, not just concerning housing but also in doing work.

The solution involves synergizing the land provided by PT Kereta Api and Perumnas will be in charge of the construction which will be assisted by SOE Karya.

Meanwhile, BTN provides financing assisted by financial services. PLN and Telkom synergize to provide the best solution, he explained.

The minister deemed that housing is a crucial problem across the world, including Indonesia with the population of more than 273 million.

To this end, one stop solution to meet the housing demands becomes necessary to find not just for millennials but also for the generation Z or Gen Z.

“We are no longer just talking about millennials, but also Gen Z which constitutes 53 percent of the entire population that experience technological disruption, changing job environment, and business opportunities,” he remarked.

“The government must be present so that the Gen Z could receive the best facilities, not just for their jobs, but also for housing that they need,” he continued.

Synergy can provide something real to the Gen Z who really needs it, the minister opined.

They not only need affordable housing, but also efficiency for their daily lives wherein they can access transportation facility that can make their job easier.

Thohir expressed his gratitude to the entire ministries for their participation in ensuring the resolution of these problems as well as the entire Directors and Commissioners of SOEs who believe that this housing concept can be done.

This is still in the form of pilot project that currently undergoing in three locations. However, if it can be done in dozens of locations, then this will be a good solution, he said.

Meanwhile, BTN President Director Haru Koesmahargyo noted that the bank is ready to synergize with Perum Perumnas and other SOEs to support meeting the housing demand for millennials.

One of the efforts to do this is by realizing the millennials’ dream of having houses with the Transit Oriented Development (TOD) concept.

“There is a very large opportunity in bridging the gap between supply and demand over proper housing for this millennials segment,” he said.

Source: Antara News

Vice President Ma’ruf Amin has stressed that the government will continue to take optimum advantage of the potentials of the sharia social financial sector to create sustainable social safety net.

“The model of sustainable social safety net is realized by improving the role of inclusive sharia economy and finance and optimizing the sharia social financial sector,” he said at an event “Economic Challenges, Special Ramadhan” broadcast by a private television station on Saturday.

The potentials for the sharia social financial sector include zakat (tithes) , infak (disbursements), sedekah (simple alms), and waqaf (awqaf).

He said only Rp71 trillion out of the potentials for zakat estimated at Rp327 trillion per year has been collected.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the government has encouraged the use of zakat for social assistance for the poor and small entrepreneurs, he said.

“By doing so, the low income people can continue economic activities,” he said.

He estimated potentials for asset awqaf at Rp414 trillion per year, and potential for money awqaf at 181 trillion per year.

“That is what we are developing and encouraging through sharia bond awqaf while the outcome is distributed to the public in the form of social assistance. The capital has been developed and (the program) has been launched as a national movement,” said.

Source: Antara News

NGO Destructive Fishing Watch (DFW) has underlined the importance of standard operating procedure (SOP) as a guideline for waste handling in the national fishery sector.

DFW Program Coordinator Hartono said in a statement on Sunday, that the institution has developed an SOP document that became a guideline for fishermen and fishery entrepreneurs.

This SOP document serves as a guideline to handle waste from fishery activities in a fishery pilot project in Tegalsari Fishery Port, Tegal, Central Java.

The SOP document is to make sure that every fishery boat has a waste disposal can and obliges them to bring back the waste that they have gathered during fishery operation back to fishery port.

Once this SOP is integrated within the applicable laws and implemented in the entire fishery ports in Indonesia, it can significantly reduce ocean waste in Indonesia, Hartono remarked.

Indonesia DFW National Coordinator Moh Abdi Suhufan noted that the initiative from various parties in handling plastic waste in the ocean must be coordinated well by the government.

“The Coordinating Ministry for Maritime Affairs and Investment must show leadership and better coordination action in carrying out the President Regulation 83/2018 on plastic waste handling in the ocean,” he said.

This means that the execution of the regulation should be done not just based on paper but based on real data, report, and development on the field from various parties in the central and regional level.

According to the National Plastic Action Partnership (NPAP), Indonesia produces 6.8 million tons of plastic per year with 10 percent among them are disposed into the ocean.

If the problem is not resolved soon, the number of plastic waste in the ocean is estimated to reach 780.000 tons by 2025.

In response, the government has encouraged the implementation of green economy through waste management that can create prosperity and social equality in addition to significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcity.

At an online discussion some time ago, official of the Coordinating Ministry for Maritime Affairs and Investment Rofi Alhanif noted that green economy is the future of waste management.

This means that there is already a paradigm change in the management of waste, especially plastic waste.

Source: Antara News

Currently, equal development is an utopian ideal that not only developing countries are trying to realize, but also several advanced nations.

They still struggle to eliminate the inequality that exist in their respective nations in order to realize a more harmonic civic living.

The motivation to eliminate inequality drove the creation of 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Various nations across the world help one another to realize a world without inequality.

Ever since Joko Widodo became President of the Republic of Indonesia, he has conducted various concrete efforts to eliminate inequality.

Infrastructure development happening in various remote regions serves as a realization of the government’s commitment to improve connectivity.

As written by the economic expert Claudia Berg, roads are the arteries through which the economy pulses.

The president’s capability in realizing infrastructure development in remote regions shows how strong the central government’s authority is when it comes to managing outermost, remote, and underdeveloped regions.

However, despite the various innovations unveiled by the central government, the improvement of prosperity in Indonesia’s outermost, remote, and underdeveloped has not been significant.

According to the data from Poverty Severity Index (P2) Based On Province and Region published by Statistics Indonesia (BPS) on January 17, 2022, there were five provinces with the highest poverty severity.

These five provinces comprise West Papua (2.18 percent), Papua (2.05 percent), East Nusa Tenggara (1.44 percent), Maluku (1.06 percent), and Aceh (0.81 percent).

The poverty severity percentage within these five provinces increases as compared to the previous semester.

For instance, in the previous semester (March 2021) West Papua was at 1.96 percent. However, in the next semester (September 2021), the figure rose to 2.18 percent.

Observing prosperity inequality in Indonesia’s outermost, remote, and underdeveloped regions, Research Professor from the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) Siti Zuhro opined that this due to the regional governments’ reliance on the central government.

Regional government authority

Law No. 43 of 2008 on the Nation’s Territory results in the regional governments’ dependency on the central government, Zuhro said.

The law granted expansive authority to the central government to manage the border areas.

This condition is mirrored in the Law’s Article 10 point (1) letter a-j which outlines the various authorities of the central government in managing the state’s territory and border areas.

According to Zuhro, the law causes the regional governments to have limited or inadequate authorities to manage their regions.

The central government’s authority aims to develop the border areas in a balanced, integrated, and comprehensive manner for the prosperity of the people as well as to ensure harmony between regions.

However, there are problems that should be handled by the regional governments without having to go through a complicated bureaucracy.

This is important especially in dealing with the complexity of the problems that border areas face.

These problems require a comprehensive resolution that encompasses several aspects such as the nation’s border, social, culture, defense, security, natural resource and environment, institutions, and capacity development.

The complexity of the problems necessitates a quick and accurate response, Zuhro noted.

Since regional governments are far away from the reach of the central government, it will certainly be hard for the central to provide a response necessary to handle these problems.

To this end, she believed that it is important for the regional governments to have the authority that is just as powerful as the central government’s in managing their regions.

Regulation harmonization

To advance outermost, remote, and underdeveloped regions, especially for border areas, simply having the central government increase the budget and undertake development is not enough.

The central government should ensure regulation certainty that became the technical umbrella and reference in carrying out the issues that became the authority of border areas.

Hence, harmonization of regulations became what Indonesia needs. Harmonization of regulations will provide clarification and certainty for regional governments in carrying out their job.

There are two main laws that become references, namely Law No. 43 of 2008 on the Nation’s Territory, and Law No. 23 of 2014 on Regional Government.

According to Zuhro, one of the matters that has to be enforced is regulation on the status of border areas as the affair of the general government that involves ministries and institutions.

This is also vertical in nature between the central, provinces, districts, and cities.

The suggestion is also related with the Article 9 of Law 43/2008 which states that the government and regional governments have the authority to manage and utilize the border and restricted areas.

When it comes to funding, Zuhro said that it needs to involve the regional budget (APBD) from each border areas in addition to the state budget (APBN) and the village budget (APBDesa).

Moreover, she proposed that there should be a change in the regional law products as well as refocusing to carry out general government affairs, especially in the handling of border areas’ crucial problems.

The other recommendation involved additional material for the regional governments concerning people empowerment, national outlook, good governance, regional competitiveness, public service innovation, and bureaucracy digitalization dissemination.

By strengthening the capacity of the people and regional governments, Zuhro believes that Indonesia’s outermost, remote, and underdeveloped regions can develop.

The independence of a regional government and its people is the key for the advancement of a region, especially for regions that are far away from the reach of the central government, she opined.

However as, as a unitary state, the principle of decentralization and regional autonomy must still consider the unity of the nation.

Indonesia, as a unitary state, does not have a clear cut regional division such as in a federal nation.

Regions in Indonesia are united with one another. Hence, regions in Indonesia cannot be divided and are inseparable part of Indonesia, Zuhro said.

With this, collectivity and harmony in action between the central government and regional governments is a very important element to prevent overdependency.

However, coordination between the central government and regional governments remains crucial.

Source: Antara News